CPA implementation – South Sudanese are besieged
Editorial, Khartoum Monitor
September 25, 2006 — There is nothing in the political or developmental landscape about making unity attractive for south Sudanese. On the contrary, there are deliberate attempts to make the whole Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) as impotent as the clause about making unity attractive. These attempts began with the implementation of the power-sharing arrangement, where the energy ministry became a bone of contention. This further progressed into the Abyei border issue. Then came the dragging of feet on the demarcation of the south-north border; through to the delayed formation of salient commissions as per the CPA. The clandestine activities on the oil fields, sabotage through manipulation of law and procedure, and other behind the scenes activities to mutilate the CPA and render the SPLM ineffective, leave a lot to be desired.
Things are working in the opposite direction. This means that instead of implementing the CPA the way it should, it is being secretly abrogated through clandestine attempts to bring the CPA to “its systematic and logical destruction”. Instead of towing the natural trend towards a pluralistic society, we are being dragged across the Red Sea into the Arab world again despite our Africanness. Of course the Arab world gives this tendency of awkward insistence of belonging to the wrong place a cool diplomatic reception in case Sudan’s assistance would be required for some hard task as history testifies. This should have irked any right thinking person to opt for his rightful and natural place of belonging with utmost pride.
However, what would those who had been guaranteed a promise in the CPA feel and think about the option for unity through making peace attractive? For sure their wild hopes for unity are dashed. The only way out for them is to believe in constructing their own state ripe with their own flavour, which lies down south in sub-Saharan Africa.
But this is not all; if there have been delays and clandestine moves to destroy the spirit and letter of the CPA, it equally means the process leading to a referendum could also be flawed through rigging or any other means. In this case south Sudanese are besieged. They are placed between the devil and the deep blue sea.